Hello Everyone! Just bought my first Jag! A 1984 XJS. Just joined this forum too. I am curious what type of wood the accents are made of. Have some repairs I may try and replicate.
Welcome. My understanding is Burled Walnut
Not all XJ-S’s are the same. However, with an '84 it’s a good bet your wood trim is elm burl. It’s kind of a light honey color, and the grain is all twisty. Burled walnut would be darker.
If you bought a Rolls Royce, the car would have elm burl trim throughout, all made from the same piece of burl, and when done RR would have stored the leftover burl away along with the serial number of your car so that when/if you ever need to replace a piece, you could call them up and have a piece made from the same original chunk. I don’t think Jaguar did that, but it might indicate the difficulty of getting elm burl to match.
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Where’s the WTF button?
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Thank you very much for the information. It a glovebox piece, it may not match exactly but i’ll give it a try. Yes the burl part of each species is so unique, may get more or less swirls.
Here’s an idea… Photograph a good piece… have someone that has a sign printer make a sticky back decal on heavy vinyl
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Good idea! I do woodworking as a hobby and may try real wood first but this is an excellent idea
Why on earth would you replace the jags real wood with a damn sticker ?
Part of what makes your jag a jag is the Connelly leather, the elm burl wood and the V12.
If you really want the fake wood, ebay is your store, all pre cut, ready to adhere. Looks as good as any fake wood, but it is fake.
So many owners continually try to find the most inexpensive way to repair their XJ’s. No wonder prices stay down. When my wood needed to be re-finished, waited till winter, joined a night wood finishing class, and did it myself. A journeyman helping me throughout, and I enjoyed every part of it, and, I still have the original wood. In the end, doing something properly ends up no more expensive and less frustrating as trying to find short cuts in the long term. Winters exist so that we can " work " on our hobby cars. That is part of the enjoyment of owning them.
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Totally agree, was a “last resort “ option. Walnut is typically really dark, trying to find that honey burl has been difficult but I found a close match. Its just the glovebox piece, the rest looks great.
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Later models used wood for the ski slope, while my '83 had black vinyl there. The change to wood caused all sorts of issues because the sun shines directly on the ski slope and deteriorates the wood quickly. A lot of the postings about wood repair involve that wood ski slope.
Improvisation is occasionally necessary… Getting parts can be difficult… There are many ways to “skin a cat”… pun was intended
I need to learn the lingo. Ski slope? Actually all the wood is perfect, the glovebox cracked down the middle where the knob is. I think I got it repaired pretty good with toothpicks as dowel and some super glue it not as noticeable and sturdy.
oops that was the before picture
Hmmm … I swear I see a “Jag-Bat” in that one, scrimbonator … 
If you’re referring to the “vinyl” (?) repair kits that apply (adhere) over the original wood bits, there are some NICE ones out there, circa $150 or so for the whole car. 
Unless you’re the wealthy concurs-type owner who can afford to pay that much (or even more) PER PIECE for real wood replacements (e.g. Madera Concepts), I say good enough … 
In fact, one of the replacement cos. has, for the ski slope veneer, a replacement made of a light “blonde”-colored wood so that it won’t “show up” the similarly-sun faded other pieces inside the cabin. Pretty smart!
That photo of the veneer that you see the face in is called “book matched” veneer. Thats the folding spot… One side sort of mirrors the other…
Accomplished by using two consecutive pieces as it gets sliced from the log